


The Tea Dance

by QueensandBC



Category: Anne of Avonlea (TV), Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985), Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
Genre: Angst, Charlettown, Cute Little Canadian Lesbians, Dancing, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, Romance, School Dance, Teen Romance, corsets, im sorry, just cute 1900's lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueensandBC/pseuds/QueensandBC
Summary: Anne is worried when Ruby isn't at the Tea dance, but when she shows up she's worried about something else entirely...Just a cute teen lesbian fic. I thought they needed more gay in Green Gables and I was inspired by the Charlettown pride parade a bit ago.





	The Tea Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there reader! This is my first fic that I've written on my own so I would appreciate Kudos if you enjoy or constructive criticism if you don't!

Anne was rather nervous for her expedition to the tea dance. With both Gilbert and Charlie barking up her tree, she really wasn't open to any more advances. But somewhere between Josie's jeers and Diana's letters of encouragement she decided not to mind what the boys would do and take this opportunity to eat and drink something out of the ordinary. Some new shoes and a stunning dress later, she found herself sipping lemonade and listening to Josie Pie go on about her love life.  
"Jim would have loved the music tonight, it sound just like a young Russian upstart that he likes. It's suck a tragedy he couldn't be here, he is going to the opera with his second cousin."  
The only thing keeping Anne from wringing Josie's neck was a stern looking chaperone standing just feet away. Jane seemed to be thinking the same thing, made obvious by her periodic eye rolls.  
In an attempt to chance the subject for the umpteenth time, Anne queried, "Has anyone seen Ruby? She was ever so excited about the dance, I'm surprised that she isn't here already."  
"Poor girl, she probably couldn't find anyone to go with. You know how important that is to her. People like us can handle themselves without a date, but Ruby..." She shook her head and took another sip of her lemonade.  
Anne knew that Josie wasn't being entirely wrong in saying that. Ruby had been seen few people at the university, but none of the relationships had lasted and all had ended in tears or public embarrassment. Anne couldn't help but wonder why Ruby would go to all the trouble just for someone to court. She didn't have the least desire to court anyone, even though she had numerous admirers.  
A few courageous student had flooded to the dance floor and two-stepped clumsily around the room.  
"Alright," Jane sighed, "I'm going to grab one before all the good ones are gone. I suggest you should do the same. Anne?"  
Anne didn't want to dance, but the last thing she wanted to do was be alone with Josie, so she followed Jane into the sea of dancers.  
Anne clung to Jane like a wet blouse as they tried to cross the sea of dancers. But suddenly a switch came up in the music and Anne was pulled in the opposite direction by a strong arm.  
"Hullo Anne!"  
Anne was relieved when a familiar face greeted her as Claude Raine's hand slipped around her waist. A young man from Nova Scotia, Claude was the person Anne went to when she needed any clarification in her algebra work.  
"Oh, hello Claude. I don't know the steps so-"  
"Well I couldn't even tell, you must be a speedy learner."  
So Anne clumsily tried to keep up as they awkwardly stumbled around the dance floor. She saw Josie looking extremely impatient as she was being whirled around by boy she was at least a head taller than, and Anne felt herself smile.  
The brisk music ended and Anne bowed to her partner. She half ran off the dance floor is a rather unladylike matter, but stopped abruptly. Her feet had suddenly lost the ability to move, just as her lungs had lost the ability to breathe.  
Ruby Gillis, all dolled up in a beautiful  
pale green ball gown was standing in a light filled doorway, as if ascending from heaven itself. 

Ch2

The ballroom, which Ruby expected to be a prison, was suddenly a sanctuary. There was still boys around every turn, each one more and more determined to catch her eye. There was still stern looking chaperones and awkward small talk.  
But there was Anne.  
She stood in the centre of the hall, glued to the spot with her dress in her arms and her eyes trained on Ruby.  
Anne dropped her bunched skirt to the ground and started to weave her way through the dancers toward the door. Ruby couldn't restrain herself and met her halfway. Anne, in her typical style, sprung herself into Ruby's arm, almost knocking the Queen Anne's lace from her red hair.  
"Oh Ruby, I though you weren't going to come! I was terribly lonesome, Josie was saying the most untruthful things about her supposed boyfriend, and you know how Jane just goes along with it, forgive me for saying this, I know you are both their friends but you know how they've become especially around boys-"  
Anne caught herself rambling and stopped, as if rendered speechless after pulling back and raking her eyes over Ruby.  
"Ruby, oh, you look like I imagine a fairy would look at midnight on the summer solstice!" Anne stared at her, taking in how the green went so well with her ivory skin and golden hair.  
Ruby assumed that was a compliment in Anne's typical style and smiled.  
"Thanks Anne. Oh, you are so kind. But we should step to the side before we're danced on!"  
They made their way off the dance floor and rested near the punch bowl.  
Ruby starred at the dance floor.  
Anne starred at Ruby. She looked with so much longing at the dancers, and her eyes looked old, to old for a girl of only 16. Too sad for a girl so beautiful.  
Ruby knew Anne was looking at her. It sent shivers all up her spine and she didn't know why. She felt like she couldn't move her neck to look back at Anne, that the sight of her puffed sleeve dress and endless freckles would be to much for her aching heart.  
"The boy you were, um, seeing-" Anne started.  
"I broke it off."  
Anne starred at her quizzically.  
"He was perfect. But can I tell you something?"  
Ruby's voice began to break and she felt Anne's hand at the small of her back. It was so comforting and welcome, she just wanted to melt into that hand, to hold it.  
Ruby composed herself again as Anne nodded. She spoke in a low voice that only Anne could hear.  
"I didn't want to court him. I mean, I though I did. I thought I wanted to court all of the boys I've dated. They were everything a girl like me should ever want. But when we were together, when he was holding my hand or anything like that, it just felt so wrong, like I was making a mistake or something."  
Anne stared at her.  
"Everything is just so terribly confusing Anne. I want to dance but I don't want to take a boy by the hand!"  
Anne handed her a glass of punch, allowing her time to regain her composure again.  
Anne couldn't stand seeing her like this. She looked so stricken. Anne didn't understand why Ruby was so sad. Anne had never wanted to date a boy and she was alright with that. What could Anne do to show her that she didn't need a guy to show her how wonderful she truly was?  
"Dance with me." The words had left Anne's lips before she had weighed the possible repercussions. Not only did Anne have no clue how to lead, or dance at all for that matter, she felt like dancing with Rudy was somehow opening the floodgates to something she couldn't quite understand, something powerful.  
Ruby looked at her, starring into her eyes, into her soul. Ruby's frown melted away to something Anne couldn't identify.  
Ruby felt as if the floor had fallen out from beneath her. Of course she wanted to dance with Anne! Something about the thought of Anne's hand at her waist, leading her across the floor felt so right and so natural.  
"Yes-um-of course!"  
And so the girls, unaware of their mutual excitement, made their way to the centre of the floor.  
Anne stood, forgetting that since she asked Ruby to dance in the first place, she should be the one to lead.  
Fearlessly, Anne took Ruby's hand and started to step anywhere but on Ruby's toes.  
Anne was so focused on the dancing she didn't notice how Ruby was looking at her; with peace and admiration.  
"Anne," Ruby said, drawing the redhead's attention up from the floor and back to Ruby's face.  
"You're doing great", Ruby smiled at her.  
"I'm sorry, dancing was never quite my specialty, even though I imagine that in a different life I lived in Scandinavia as one of the Queen's ladies in waiting and had an illicit affair with one of her suitors, and we would only meet up at balls and Dance the night away."  
Ruby loved Anne when she made up her stories. Her eyes became glazed over and dreamy as she expressed her most personal and fantastic dreams.  
"Tell me more about Scandinavian affair." Ruby said in a longing voice.  
Anne continued her story as they whirled around the dance floor. Anne was a fast learner. It was easy when you were comfortable with your partner.  
"And just as my worthy love Sebastian draws his shining sword-"  
WHAM.  
Suddenly Ruby is hit from behind, toppling onto Anne and bringing them both to the floor. The both scream, drawing looks from every direction. They are a mass of limbs and hair and expensive fabric, woven together on the hard dance floor.  
There are murmurs from onlookers. "Are they alright?"  
"Is that Ruby Gillis?"  
"Well that's a compromising position."  
Anne realized that she had pinned Ruby to the ground, finding herself nose to nose with the flushed blonde, her breath heavy and her chest moving quickly. Anne had no desire to move.  
They stayed like that, in a tangle of limbs, too close, all eyes on them, for a few moments too long.  
And suddenly, they were laughing. They were shaken by uncontrollable, breathtaking laughter, and slowly the rest of the hall joined in. Anne got to her feet and extended a hand to Ruby, which she took. Still laughing, instead of starting to dance again Anne lead Ruby out of the doors and to the gardens.  
Giggling, girls ran from the hall into the cool night in a rather unladylike fashion.  
"Oh my goodness Anne, I've never laughed so hard in my life!"  
They giggles their way through roses and lilies, their breath slowly becoming more even. They walked close together, their arms touching. Anne had never walked this close to a friend, and wondered why, because this felt terrific. It's as if she was glowing.  
"Ruby, I want you to know something."  
Anne stopped and pulled them both down on a bench slightly hidden from view. Ruby looked at her attentively.  
"You are a terrific, wonderful, kindred spirit who I am so incredibly grateful to know. Our bond feels different than any other bond I've had, there's something about it that just feels so true."  
Ruby took Anne's hand in both of hers. Ruby wasn't as good at words as Anne was, and hoped that this would be enough to show her how she felt.  
They were too close again, and the giggling stopped completely and the world grew slow. But this time wasn't an accident. There was no strange eyes on them. They were alone.  
Anne's free hand found its way onto Ruby's cheek, going along her cheekbone and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.  
They looked at each other for what could have been days.  
And suddenly Anne sprung to her feet, and the moment was gone.  
"Anne?" Ruby looked at her, alarmed at this sudden change.  
Anne was looking around, gaze darting everywhere but at Ruby.  
"I-I umm..."  
"Anne what is it?"  
Ruby was worried, was Anne unwell?  
"I need to go."  
And just like that, Anne hiked up her skirt and ran into the dark. 

Ch 3

Ruby had gone back to the boarding house shortly after that. She walked along the city streets, the wind and the birds trumped by the deafening sound of her own thoughts.  
Ruby couldn't make heads or tails of the interaction with Anne earlier. The retraced every moment of the night trying to understand the way her heart had skipped a beat when Anne had pinned her to the floor. Perhaps she should go to the doctor. By the time she had made it back to the house, she was thoroughly convinced she was dying of some heart disease.  
As she crept up the stairs, she saw a light coming out the crack in Anne's door. She almost walked past until she heard a muffled sound from within. Was it...crying?  
Without knocking, Ruby slowly pushed the door open to find Anne in her nightgown, laying on top of her made bed, clutching a book.  
"Anne?" Ruby announced herself.  
Anne quickly tried to cover up her current predicament.  
"No no no, Anne it's okay." Ruby made her way over to the bed and sat beside Anne, who was now upright with her legs over the side of the bed. Ruby put one hand around Anne's waist and the other curled into her hair, hugging the other girl the best she could in her party dress and corset.  
But this only seemed to make the other girl cry harder.  
"Anne, what is it? Please Anne, you know you can tell me anything."  
Ruby pulled back and looked at Anne again.  
Anne seemed to debate talking for a few seconds, still crying slightly.  
She took a shaky breath.  
"If I tell you what I am about to tell you, you must swear to never tell a soul what you have heard tonight. Not Jane, not Josie, not any boy or family member, especially not Diana. Not in writing or in anything of the sort. And if you still choose to hear it, it must not effect the way any future interactions of ours may happen."  
Ruby was a bit speechless from Anne's severity.  
"Do you swear it? Because if you do not, and cannot make that promise, please, leave me to my wallowing."  
Ruby's curiosity was too strong for her own good and she knew it.  
"I swear it on all that's good in the world."  
Anne took another deep breath and went to speak, but stopped herself, trying to find the words.  
"It's hard to explain really. But I think there's something terribly wrong with me. And I think I know what it is. A small part of me thinks there might be something terribly wrong with you too."  
Ruby knew she was dying a mysterious illness, she just knew it.  
"I don't think I can really tell you. Words work for so many situations but I don't think they can work for this one. Would it be alright if I showed you?"  
Ruby nodded furiously, because it felt like her heart problem had started again the way it was beating when Anne looked at her in the light of her candle.  
Anne took a breath, this one confident and resigned, and looked at Ruby. Then slowly, confidently, she put her hand on Ruby's neck and drew their faces together.  
Ruby had kissed some of the boy's she has courted, but every time it had been boring, and when it was not boring it felt as if she was kissing a fish, awkward and gross.  
But the was she reacted to Anne's hand on her neck and hand on her waist and lips on hers was unprecedented to say the least.  
Ruby found herself sliding impossibly closer to Anne, her hands on either side of her face.  
Anne's tentative, innocent peck has quickly given way to something passionate and exciting, something neither of them had thought possible yesterday.  
At some point they had fallen back on Anne's bed, in a very similar position as the one they had found themselves on the dance floor.  
Ruby rolled out of Anne's grasp to stand up. She went straight to Anne's wardrobe, opening its doors and taking out a nightgown.  
"Anne,"  
Ruby faced Anne who was still breathing heavily sprawled on her bed.  
"This is awfully hard in a corset. Will you help me out of it?"

 

Anne had read a lot of books in her life, and a great deal of those were unsuitable for a girl of her humble upbringing. She knew how poets described passion, she know how novelists captured the emotions of young lovers.  
When she had first got to the boarding house, she had discovered a small book under her mattress from a previous occupant of her room.  
At first glance, it simply looked like another romance with knights and maidens and meetings in the moonlight. But she quickly learned that this book was different than Jane Eyre and Sense and Sensibility. There were more than midnight kisses under the moonlight.  
When the maiden in the hidden book had asked the knight for his help taking her corset off, well, Anne was shocked to say the least at what had followed.  
Ruby obviously had innocent intentions, but Anne could not help comparing her situation to the one in her hidden book.  
"Perhaps," Anne stammered, "Perhaps you should go back to your room."  
Ruby looked at Anne, confused.  
"Why can't I sleep here?"  
Ruby crooked her eyebrow, as if to challenge Anne.  
"Well, it's just, we just-"  
"What is it? You've slept in the same bed as me before for sleepovers. You've slept in the same bed as Diana countless times!"  
Ruby started to unbutton her dress, much to Anne's disarray.  
"No, but that's different, it's different now-"  
"Now that we've kissed?"  
The words brought Ruby's stomach to her throat, they tasted like vanilla and she licked her flushed lips that still tasted like sugar and salt.  
And Anne was standing, bounding toward the standing Ruby, kissing her with all of her red haired passion.  
Anne's hands found her way to the back of Ruby's dress, undoing the miles of satin green dots as Ruby's small hands combed through her mass of auburn. Anne's lips slowly migrated to just under her chin, placing chaste kisses along her jawline and down the side of her throat.  
The jade dress fell to the floor and Ruby was left in her corset, undershirt, petticoats and heels.  
She was beautiful like this, hair askew and pupils blown, barring her neck and dress on the ground.  
Suddenly Ruby broke the contact and turned her back to Anne, brushing her hair in front of her and allowing Anne to to get a full view of the laces of her corset.  
Anne's hands shook slightly as she unlaced Ruby's corset. It's was unbearably silent, with just the sound of both their still slightly heavy breathing and the friction of the laces going through the eyelets, allowing Ruby's breathing to get more even as the vice in her ribs loosened.  
Finally the corset was loose enough to pull over her head and it landed on the floor with a thump.  
Ruby stepped away from Anne, still not facing her. Anne was still glued in place.  
Ruby's head whipped around, meeting Anne's eyes again. They stood like this for a minute before Ruby smiled teasingly.  
"Well, turn around!" the blonde said.  
So Anne went and kneeled on bed facing the wall.  
She could hear Ruby's cotton undershirt grazing her porcelain skin, the click of her nails fiddling with the buttons of her skirts. Anne tried to not let her mind wonder, to picture the sight.  
Anne felt the bed dip and she turned around.  
Ruby was curling up beside her, dressed in one of Anne's nightgowns. She was awfully close to Anne on the small bed, her hair sprawled out on Anne's single pillow.  
Anne cuddled up beside her a blew out the candle. 

Neither of the girls really knew what was in store for them, what this magnetism could mean for the rest of their lives. But right now they just enjoyed the feel of their skin together, their collected heat under the wool blankets fending off the cool of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thansk for reading! Please leave Kudos or a comment!!!!!


End file.
